FERN". 301 



gallic acids, combined with lime and potass, phosphate of lime 

 and lignin ; the ashes yield silica, alumina, and oxide of iron. 



Medicinal Properties andUses, — The efficacy of the rhizoma 

 of male Fern as a specific against worms has been credited from 

 the remotest times of which we have any medical record. 

 Theophrastus*, Galen f, Pliny |:, and Dioscorides§, all extol 

 its virtues as an anthelmintic. It has also been recommend- 

 ed in gout, rickets, scorbutic affections, hypochondriasis, in- 

 veterate ulcers, and obstructed menses, and it is asserted by 

 j^etius, to provoke abortion, which Olivier || endeavours to 

 confirm. Pauli ^, Hoffmann, Andry, Marchant, and many 

 others, have administered it with great success against tape- 

 worms as well as other intestinal parasites. Murray** cites 

 numerous cases. Madame NoufFer, a surgeon's widow, acquired 

 great celebrity, about half a century ago, by the sale of a secret 

 remedy in the cure of the tape-worm ff. This, after a trial 

 of its efficacy by the principal physicians of Paris, was bought 

 by the French government for 15,000 francs, and published by 

 their order. " In this, as in almost every other instance," says 

 Chaumeton, " the Fern root has been accompanied with some 

 powerful cathartic, so that it is difficult to determine which is 

 most efficacious, or whether the success obtained is not attri- 

 butable to the latter only-''^ Wendt §§, however, Gmelin ||||, 

 and others, affirm that given alone, in the dose of two or three 



* Hist. Plant, lib. ix. cap. 22. 



f De simp. med. lib. viii. ed. Ricci. 



X Hist. lib. xxviii. cap. 9 



§ Mat. Med. lil). iv. cap. 186. 



II Joiirn. de Med. de Vandemionde, torn. xii. p. !29. 



^ Quadrip. Bot. p. 333, ed. Fick. 



** Apparatus Med. vol. v. p. 456 — 471- 



•f-\- The following is the recipe : — After a supper of panada, and the 

 injection of an emollient clyster, the patient is to take three drachms, or 

 an infant one drachm, of the powdered root of male Fern, in common 

 water ; and in two hours a strong dose of calomel and scammony. If this 

 does not operate speedily, it is to be followed by a dose of purging salts, 

 and if the worm be not expelled in a few hours, the medicine is to be re- 

 peated at proper intervals. 



Xt Flore Med. torn. iii. p. 236. 



§§ Nachricht^vom clin. Institut zu Erlangen. — Pens. v. et vi. p. 45. 



Illj Dissert, consid. gen. filicum. p. 50. 



